Dozens protest in Batumi against ‘uncontrolled’ construction projects

Several dozen activists protested in the Georgian Black Sea resort and port city of Batumi on Sunday against what they said were uncon­trolled con­struc­tion projects in the city.

Par­tic­i­pants of the rally included members of local civil society groups Society Batomi and Protect Old Boulevard.

In a statement on Facebook, the organ­is­ers described newly built res­i­den­tial buildings in the city as ‘gruesome’ and ‘dys­func­tion­al’, leaving locals and tourists breathing polluted air due to the con­struc­tion, as well as buildings blocking the sea breeze in the city centre.

Signs held at the protest called the city munic­i­pal­i­ty ‘Batumi’s enemy’ for failing to curb uncon­trolled high-rise res­i­den­tial buildings and sky­scrap­ers, while one speaker said the projects were jeop­ar­dis­ing the ‘authentic image’ of the city’s historic district.

Salome Tset­skhladze, a musician living in Batumi who took part in the rally, told OC Media that Old Batumi, which was orig­i­nal­ly made up of two to three-storey buildings, had been com­pro­mised.

Tset­skhladze said that activists were reacting to the practice of stripping cultural heritage status from buildings through­out Batumi, the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara. She said that objec­tions were dismissed with the ‘quick decision of two or three officials’.

The main target of the activists’ criticism was the Zoning Council of Adjara’s Cultural Heritage Pro­tec­tion Agency, which according to them, was ‘putting Batumi into concrete’ with the goal of luring invest­ments.

The Zoning Council, under the head of the Gov­ern­ment of Adjara, oversees con­struc­tion appli­ca­tions and rec­om­mends to the City Hall whether they should accept or reject permits.

In recent years, members of Society Batomi have been critical of the council. In 2017, AdjaraTV cited the group accusing the author­i­ties of including former and current ‘bureau­crats’ that lack qual­i­fi­ca­tions and archi­tects with links to the con­struc­tion industry on the council — ‘instead of having spe­cial­ists in relevant fields’.

Speaking to OC Media, Shota Gujabidze, a member of Society Batomi, said that contrary to the law, the Zoning Council was mostly made up of officials ‘with bad rep­u­ta­tions’ who have no expertise in the relevant fields, rather than art his­to­ri­ans or urban planners.

Society Batomi has demanded that the Chair of the Adjara gov­ern­ment, Tornike Rizhvadze, scrap the Zoning Council entirely.

Pro­test­ers on Sunday held pictures of several members the Zoning Council with the words ‘those who ruin us!’ (Society Batomi)

Pro­test­ers demanded that official documents reg­u­lat­ing protected zones and devel­op­ment of the his­tor­i­cal part of the city be revised.

Another demand of the rally concerned the planned con­struc­tion of a chemical terminal in Batumi’s port, scheduled to be completed in 2020. Activists insisted this should not happen without an envi­ron­men­tal impact assess­ment.

At Sunday’s rally, activists said they planned to come up with an online petition to mobilise the public around their demands.

According to Inter­Press­News pro­test­ers vowed to take more ‘radical measures’, including permanent protests, if their demands were not met.

The gov­ern­ment of Adjara and Batumi City Hall did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to a request for comment.

Construction on the Riviera

Tset­skhladze told OC Media that in addition to devel­op­ments in the his­tor­i­cal section of the city, she was directly affected by the Batumi Riviera seafront project, which faces her home.

On 14 February, the Protect the Old Boulevard campaign, which endorsed Society Batomi’s other demands, called on the public to ‘save Riviera’, a coastal district of the city where private Georgian invest­ment holding Silk Road Group has planned a $250 million multi-func­tion­al complex which includes high-rise res­i­den­tial buildings.

A mockup of the Batumi Riviera seafront project with six res­i­den­tial and hotel towers. (Chapman Taylor)

The Batumi Riviera project has been supported by the Georgian Co-Invest­ment Fund, co-founded by former Georgian prime minister and the current chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivan­ishvili.

In October 2018, members of Society Batomi accused city mayor Lasha Komakhidze of green­light­ing the project in disregard of the area’s recre­ation­al and his­tor­i­cal value.

Tamar Mameishvili, an activist involved in urban campaigns in Batumi since 2015, told OC Media that the Riviera Project’s planned sky­scrap­ers would ruin Old Batumi, block the sea view, and undermine the city’s tourism industry.

‘I get involved because I want residents of Batumi to shape the future of this city, not officials or investors’, Mameishvili said.

‘I want this city, which had been devel­op­ing har­mo­nious­ly and with the right planning for years, to be preserved […] and also to become eco­nom­i­cal­ly lucrative due to its cultural heritage. I want to live in a pretty, calm, clean city, where the air is not con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and sunlight is not blocked by dust, and where concrete doesn’t block the view to the sea.’

According to Society Batomi’s Shota Gujabidze, the Cultural Heritage Pro­tec­tion Agency in Adjara has recently become critical of the Riviera project and has returned it to Batumi City Hall with rec­om­men­da­tions.

Gujabidze told OC Media that recent protests around these topics in Batumi had spon­ta­neous­ly assembled people from different walks of life, which he said was ‘a new expe­ri­ence’.

‘This means these demands have become more social rather than an area of spe­cial­ists only’, Gujabidze said.